Zombies: they’re tiny – and these ones are real

They’re called zombies – but their nature is molecular, not Hollywood Human. Their presence is worldwide. And now new research suggests they’re far more frightening than any horror fantasy. Author Chris Wood writes in his Natural Security column today:

In Alberta rivers downstream from certain Intensive Livestock Operations – better-known as feedlots, where hundreds and even thousands of cattle are crowded together in foetid paddocks of manure and urine the more economically to supply North America’s steak and burger-loving consumers – almost all the males have disappeared from key minnow populations.

The suspected cause is chemicals used in cattle feed. They affect humans as surely as they affect fish. And now it turns out our assumption that natural processes would take care of the problem for us was wrong.

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